Erling Haaland (£15.3m) has been a big talking point over the last few weeks in Fantasy Premier League and with good reason.
The Manchester City forward is the most expensive player in the history of FPL.
But after scoring 10 goals in his first five Premier League games this season, he has only managed one in the past five. Understandably, this is cause for concern for his many owners. A few weeks ago, I explored whether it was worth giving Haaland the triple captaincy armband. Now, we can justifiably discuss selling him. This just goes to show how quickly the landscape can change in this game, and how there’s no getting away from the Haaland conundrum.
Injuries to midfielders Kevin De Bruyne (£9.4m) and Rodri (£6.3m) have made an impact on the Norwegian’s output and Pep Guardiola’s team overall (they’ve lost three games in a row in all competitions). However, Haaland has also missed five big chances in the past two games while putting up a combined expected goals (xG) of 3.21, so it’s not like he has been deprived of opportunities.
Should we keep the faith with Haaland or get rid of the Premier League’s top goalscorer?
Here, we look at the pros and cons of selling a forward on course for a third Golden Boot in as many seasons in English football.
The reasons to sell Haaland
Freeing up money
Haaland won’t stay this quiet, goals-wise, for long but that’s not the point. The money saved by removing him can do wonders for your squad.
You can switch to Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah (£12.8m), who is the next-most expensive player in the game, and have £2.5m to spare. That extra money can upgrade other positions in your team; acquiring Josko Gvardiol (City, £6.2m) or Trent Alexander-Arnold (Liverpool, £7.0m) over a budget defender, for example, or Bukayo Saka (Arsenal, £10.1m) instead of Luis Diaz (Liverpool, £7.7m).
Let’s say you didn’t want Salah, and instead downgraded Haaland to Aston Villa’s Ollie Watkins (£9.0m), who is the second-most expensive forward in the game. This would allow you a team including Watkins, Saka, Tottenham’s Son Heung-min (£9.9m), Chelsea’s Cole Palmer (£11.0m) and Alexander-Arnold — and quite easily.
It would also give you a deeper squad, which is going to be needed during the busy festive period.
There are alternative captaincy options
From here until Gameweek 18, there are arguably better captaincy options than Haaland m.
This captaincy matrix below from @LegoMane_FPL is a handy tool.
The ©️A P T A I N and
P R E M I U M matrix 🖊️🗓️ #GW11 – to – GW21
🟪 highlighting key CAPTAIN and PREMIUM player options HOME and AWAY matches versus last seasons bottom 12/promoted sides 👀#CaptaincyMatrix #FPL
💚💛❤️ pic.twitter.com/LLwevMZfYG
— Legomané (@Legomane_FPL) November 3, 2024
As we can see in Gameweek 11, Salah and Son or his Spurs team-mate Dominic Solanke (£7.7m) are good alternatives as they play Villa (H) and Ipswich Town (H).
If we go through the options, we can see Haaland as a captain isn’t really needed until Gameweek 18 or 19 if you own any two of Saka, Salah, Palmer and Son.
If you’re after a deeper look, Holly Shand has explored non-premium captaincy options for the next few gameweeks.
The potential upside
Despite Haaland’s recent blanks, he is still owned by 69 per cent of FPL managers overall.
He will still be captained by a lot of managers, so going for different skippers for your team over the next eight or nine gameweeks is a differential move and if it works, could propel you up the rankings.
You might be more inclined to this if you aren’t at a great rank right now.
Reasons to keep Haaland
He will be hard to get back
Haaland is expensive and a downside of getting rid of him is that you will very likely have to commit to going without him for a good seven to eight gameweeks at least.
Once you sell him and spread the savings around, it will be tough to get him back — not only will you have to make multiple transfers, you’ll also need the money you invested in one of your other premium players, who is likely to have good fixtures.
So if that player turns into the Haaland of Gameweek 1 to Gameweek 5, you have to hold your nerve as it’s likely you won’t have an easy route back to the City striker. You want to be spending your transfers on fixing your weak links and maximising points: not flip-flopping on Haaland every few weeks.
So if you are a fickle FPL manager, you might want to resist selling him.
Haaland is a reliable captaincy option
One of the biggest advantages with Haaland is his consistency. He conveniently takes the decision of who to captain out of your hands most weeks. There is no week in which he is really a ‘bad’ captaincy pick as he’s one of the few players who can haul against any opposition.
Having multiple captains to choose from is not always a positive, and there is nothing wrong with ‘perma-captaining’ the City forward.
The potential downside
Haaland’s high ownership means that if he starts scoring regularly again after you sell him, you will plummet down the rankings if your other premiums aren’t performing.
Using two or more transfers
If you are thinking of selling Haaland, it’s only worth doing if you are immediately using that money saved to invest in another premium asset or spreading it around your squad. This means using at least two transfers and that is a big commitment at this moment in time, especially with an international break after the upcoming Gameweek 11 fixtures.
Ideally, you want at least two free transfers going into the break, so you might be leaving yourself a bit vulnerable. If you are in the luxurious position of having three or more free transfers banked, then this doesn’t apply as much — however, there is a big fixture swing from Gameweek 12 for the likes of Chelsea, Arsenal and Brighton.
Going into the international window with three or more free transfers is like a mini wildcard and can be hugely advantageous.
Haaland will come good again — maybe even as soon as this weekend at Brighton — and keeping him is perfectly fine.
Guardiola has some key figures recovering from injuries and their 4-1 loss to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday was another indicator that they aren’t the team we are used to.
If I were to sell Haaland, it would only be to facilitate bringing in Salah — Liverpool are playing better as a team than City are and he is looking as key for them as ever.
The difference in expected points between these two players over the next eight weeks is similar in my opinion but over the next two, Salah is the better captaincy option. Also, saving money to invest in other areas of your squad would push me to favour him over the medium term.
Also, I would only make the switch if you can do it free of charge. I don’t think it’s worth a hit. You can wait a week if you still aren’t sure. Liverpool play Villa at home and City go to Brighton in this round, so the difference in fixture difficulty isn’t huge.
However, in Gameweek 12, Liverpool have a plum game against Southampton while City welcome Spurs, so the change can be made then too.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
